The Changing Status
of the Black Athlete in the 20th Century United States

by
John C. Walter

From Jesse Owens to Magic Johnson, Black Athletes
have always been in the news, but their path to fame and fortune has never
been easy. Only today are they beginning to gain their rightful place
in sport's Hall of Fame. Despite this, problems still remain. In this
article, John C. Walter, Ph.D. Professor of American Ethnic Studies and
Director of the Blacks in Sports Project at the University of Washington
in Seattle explains why.

In the United States since World War II, the world of sport has undergone
dramatic changes. The first decade after the war witnessed the resurgence
of baseball as the national sport, particularly with the return of hero-athletes,
the formation and development of the National Basketball Association,
and the transformation of professional football into a powerhouse organization
vying with baseball as the national sport. That competition continues
to this day, with the profound irony that in some quarters the Black athlete
is now seen as "saving" baseball1.*
In the pre-World War II years, the Black athlete was restricted from competition
in all the professional sports. Only in the Olympics, because of its international
nature, were Black athletes allowed to compete unrestricted.

This situation reversed the mores of the later 19th and early 20th centuries,
where in football, basketball, and horse racing, for example, black and
white athletes competed against each other. But as Black athletes increasingly
began to dominate their sports, as was clearly the case in bicycling and
horse racing, white athletes and managers decided to ban interracial competition.
The contemptuous posture and defiance of superb Black heavyweight boxing
champion Jack Johnson only fanned the flames of fear and resentment among
whites. After his defeat in 1915, white champion boxers refused to fight
a Black man until 1936 when Joe Louis defeated Jimmy Braddock to become
boxing's world champion.

To mask the real fear of loss to Black competitors in sports and elsewhere,
the white population fabricated a number of myths about Black people,
claiming Blacks suffered from low intelligence, criminal tendencies, and
inferior physicality. These sick myths that served white skin privilege
began to explode when Eddie Tolan and Ralph Metcalfe, distinguished themselves
in the 1932 Olympics, as did Jesse Owens (most famously), and Metcalfe,
among other Black athletes were to in the 1936 Berlin games, where Nazis
were, like many White Americans, claiming to be of a superior race.

It was bitterly ironic, perhaps even farcical, that these Negroes should
disprove abroad the very theories that confined and oppressed them at
home. Yet nothing at home changed upon their return -- except that no
longer could the myth of Black people's laziness and lack of ambition
be promoted unimpeachably, since the historical record was clear internationally.

Consequently, when Joe Louis defeated Primo Carnera in 1935, a reporter
wrote, "Something sly and sinister and, perhaps, not quite human,
came out of the African jungle, last night, to strike down and utterly
demolish the huge hulk that had been Primo Carnera, the giant.".2*

In addition, the New York Sun noted that the "American Negro
was "a natural athlete.".3*

It is perhaps symptomatic of the times that a syndicated newspaper columnist,
Hugh S. Johnson wrote, in 1938 , "The average of white intelligence
is above the average of Black intelligence, probably because the white
race, is several thousand years farther away from jungle savagery. But,
for the same reason, the average of white physical equipment, is lower.
.4*

Similarly, in the Atlanta Journal, commenting on Jessie Owens'
exploits at the Berlin Olympics, O.B. Keeler wrote, "Our fastest
runners are colored boys, and our longest jumpers and highest leapers.
And now, our champion fighting men with the fists is Joseph Louis Barrow.".5*

It is testimony to the pervasive view of the Black athlete as somehow
subhuman, that both Northern and Southern U.S. newspapers and commentators
shared the view that the "new" strong Black athlete was now
so because of his jungle ancestry. That view is still largely held, but
perhaps better concealed amidst intonations that Black athletes are simply,
naturally "athletic," as opposed to being intelligent, critically
astute practitioners of an intense work ethic which makes possible their
excellence in the aesthetics of athletic play and competition.

Even as recently as September, 1995, Roger Bannister, the first man to
break the four minute mile barrier, was reported to have said that Black
sprinters "have certain natural anatomical advantages.".6*

After World War II, the attitude of Black people changed dramatically.
The war had improved the lot of the "uplift" organizations,
the National Urban League, the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, as well as the Congress of Racial Equality, which had
conducted bus rides throughout the South in the war years in an attempt
to regain those rights that had been taken away from African Americans
after the end of Reconstruction. In addition, African Americans had gained
entry into the American Federation of Labor and other labor unions, and
these organizations exerted additional political pressure on public institutions
and on the larger population to treat Black people as equal citizens.

Similar pressure increased on professional sporting organizations which
had seen a significant rise in popularity, with concomitant increases
in attendance at games and revenue from radio and the new medium, television.

The signing of Jackie Robinson by baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946
is well chronicled, as is his debut in the major leagues in 1947. For
most people, Robinson has the honor of integrating professional sports;
however, in fact, two years before he made his debut, the National Football
League had integrated when the Los Angeles Rams signed two African-American
professional players, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, the latter of
whom became an outstanding movie star. Similarly the very next year, in
1946, the same year that Jackie Robinson was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers,
the All American Football Conference team, the Cleveland Browns, signed
two Black players, Bill Willis and Marion Motley. In 1948, the New York
Giants signed Emlen Tunnel, who enjoyed a distinguished career, finally
retiring in 1961.

These initiatives of the 1940's certainly were assisted by other developments
in the nascent struggle for Black civil rights that began to peak in the
1953 Supreme Court Decision, Terry v. Adams, which ordered that Blacks
be allowed to vote in primaries and all elections, and the landmark 1954
Supreme Court decision, Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas,
et al., which ordered school desegregation. These tremendous leaps forward
reinforced the confidence of Black people in their efforts to gain and
exercise full citizenship and its social freedoms and intensified the
desire to excel in interracial sporting competitions. In this political
atmosphere then, the professional leagues as well as the colleges and
universities began to realize that they were experiencing a watershed
in American history and efforts had to be made to achieve full integration
in sports, if not in everyday life.

What is generally missed by many sport historical writers is that virtually
all these players who broke the perennial color line distinguished themselves
on the field as well as in their personal lives. All of them were cautioned,
as Joe Louis had been, not to transgress social barriers while they broached
the barriers of the professional sports. The well-worn phrase was that
these people knew that their behavior on field and off was to be a "credit
to their race." These men, therefore, had to carry the burden of
double circumspection, to play better than white players and also to conduct
a life that was far more exemplary than both their white on-the-field
counterparts and the ordinary white citizen.

Tennis and golf are major sports today, but in the period of World War
II, they had not yet reached the prominence they have gained in recent
years. In those two sports, the "whites only" policy was the
rule long after baseball, football, and basketball had integrated their
ranks. It was not until 1959 that the Professional Golfers of America
integrated their ranks, as a consequence of a lawsuit which started as
far back as 1943.

In 1969, one of the first African Americans allowed on the tour, Charlie
Sifford, won a major tournament, the Los Angeles Open, signaling a tentatively
broken color line. Yet, today, there are still no more than two Black
players on the regular tour, and three on the Senior Tour. This paltry
number is not necessarily a consequence of discrimination in the P.G.A.
or the "Tour" itself, but rather emblematic of the continued
discrimination and impoverishment of approximately of two/fifths of the
Black population, which makes it impossible for young Black men and women
to afford the equipment and the training to participate in golf.

A similar situation is characteristic of tennis. Althea Gibson was the
lone standout as a Black woman in the 1950s, and Arthur Ashe as the lone
Black male champion during the period of 1960-77. Since then, there have
been few African American players, male or female, in the U.S. Lawn Tennis
Association Tournaments, and for precisely the same reason there are so
few professional Black golfers.

The integration of Black athletes into the college sporting scene picked
up the pace in the 1950s for the same reasons that integration occurred
in the professional leagues. Jim Brown, who starred at Syracuse University
in football from 1953 through 1956 and went on to a distinguished professional
career, was seen as the quintessential Black college athlete. Particularly
in Northern schools, there were a number of other football, basketball,
baseball and track stars who were nearly as distinguished as Brown.

Nevertheless, subjected on these campuses to subtle and overt forms of
racism, most were instructed by their coaches to do two main things: remain
passive in the face of racial insults, and above all, do not date white
women. For the most part these admonitions were respected until the 1960s.

In the history of sports, as is true of African American sports, the
emphasis has mostly been on male athletes. It is interesting to note,
though, that Black women today, although they do not play professional
football and baseball (though there appears to be a new professional women's
basketball league in the making), have achieved parity with Black male
athletes and their white female counterparts in participation in college
sports for women and in the Olympics. The enormous early success of Black
women track stars in intercollegiate and Olympic competitions was the
result of Tuskeegee Institute's Athletic Director, Cleveland Abbot..7*

Abbot initiated the Tuskeegee Relays in 1927, which included two events
for women. Three years earlier, in 1924, the National Amateur Athletic
Union, (AAU) held its first National Championship for Women. This was,
of course, mostly for white women; however, ten years after Abbot's initiative
for African American women, Tuskeegee won its first National AAU Championship.
From Abbott's work and successes at Tuskeegee, the mantle was passed to
Tennessee State University, so that by the time of the 1948 Olympics,
a significant number of Black women represented the United States. Virtually
all the women on that Olympic track and field team came from these two
schools. By the 1950s, Tennessee State dominated women's track and field
until the 1970s.

Wilma Rudolph died last year, but few who were alive in 1960 will forget
the profound effect she had on the world at large. In that year's Olympics,
Rudolph won three gold medals, and her grace, charm and sheer athleticism
captivated the world's press. Back in the United States, her performance
profoundly affected Black teenagers, especially girls, with many taking
an interest in track and field. This resurgence continues to this very
day, but the high point was reached at the 1984 Olympics where Black women
--who accounted for only 6% of the U.S. population-- won 75% of all the
track and field medals won by American women..8*

The integration of college and professional sports in the U.S. went hand
in hand with the Black assertiveness that began during World War II. And
if the period 1960-62 is called the Civil Rights Era and the Second Reconstruction,
those nomenclatures were most dramatically demonstrated in the 1968 Olympics
in Mexico City, where John Carlos and Tommy Smith raised their black-gloved
fists and bowed their heads solemnly while the U.S. national anthem was
played during the medal ceremonies. The majority of the American public
viewed extremely negatively this adamant, though brief, gesture, and these
two men and others presumed to have been in conspiracy with them, suffered
discrimination after the 1968 Olympics in the form of disproportionate
difficulty finding good jobs. Nevertheless, Willie Whyte, five-time Black
woman Olympic broad jumper, testified that their demonstration unified
the athletes, both Black and white, into one team..9*

It is difficult to say whether the gesture by Carlos and Smith made for
the improvement of the Black athlete's condition. Yet in 1991, when Sports
Illustrated convened a roundtable and asked a number of outstanding Black
and White athletes if things had been better for them in the 1970s and
80s, most agreed that a number of things had improved. The roundtable
consisted of such luminaries as Hank Aaron, Anita De Frantz, and Bill
Walton. Relationships between Black and white players and between Black
players and management on professional teams seemed, in the panelists'
eyes, very similar to the past. They noted that the most significant progress
had been made in large salaries that were paid to bona fide superstar
African Americans, notably, at the time, Magic Johnson in basketball,
Bo Jackson in football and baseball, and Dwight Gooden in baseball. Expressing
overriding concerns beyond considerations of current salary figures, the
roundtable pointed out that generally Black athletes, because of poor
college preparation, were not prepared for life after professional sports.

It is true that Black athletes face enormous obstacles in obtaining positions
in the coaching, managing, and executive ranks of professional sports
as well as in college and university ranks. These obstacles are not reduced
by the number of Black athletes who graduate with marginal skills, who
do not graduate at all, or who play successfully in the professional leagues.
In short, there is little correlation between the excellence of athletic
abilities and the mobility many white athletes have between the playing
field and the coach's clipboard.

In the professional leagues, the sporting organization that has done
best in hiring Black coaches has been the National Basketball Association
(NBA). In the NBA, Black players approximate 70% or more of those on the
court. And as recently as 1995, the NBA had only 5 Black head coaches,
and only one team, Denver Nuggets, had partial Black ownership. In 1996
the "winningest" coach in NBA history is an African American,
Lenny Wilkens, currently the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks, who won
his 1000th game in 1996. An African American, John Lucas, serves as Coach,
General Manager, and Vice President of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers.

Nothing approximates this in baseball or football. Although Bill White,
a Black man, served as President of the National League of Professional
Baseball, from April 1989 to February 1994, very few Black men have ever
had the opportunity to manage baseball teams. Larry Doby, one of the two
earliest Black managers, was hired by the Chicago White Sox in 1978, but
soon was demoted to hitting instructor after his team lost 50 games. Unlike
most of his White counterparts, he was not given a second chance..10*
The only Black baseball manager of any tenure was Frank Robinson, who
retired in 1992 after twenty years as a manager in the major leagues.

As the 1996 season begins, there are only three Black managers (or head
coaches) in professional baseball: Don Baylor of the Colorado Rockies;
Dusty Baker of the San Francisco Giants; and Cito Gaston of the Toronto
Blue Jays. There are, however, a number of assistant coaches or assistants
to the assistant coaches; but it is customary that Black members of a
coaching staff are passed over for the leadership roles while less experienced,
less celebrated white players are chosen as general managers and coaches.
In professional football there are no Black owners, no Black General Managers,
and at present, only two Black head coaches, Dennis Green of the Minnesota
Vikings and Ray Rhodes of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Closely related to the prejudice against Black athletes and against Black
men and women as coaches and managers is the age-old perception or belief
that the African American is naturally more "athletic" than
intelligent in comparison to white people. Critic Nelson George argues
in his book, Elevating the Game, that with professional basketball's desegregation,
Black men such as Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Julius Erving, and others
have completely transformed the game of basketball..11*

More recently, the film "Hoop Dreams" and a flurry of books
have documented the meanings basketball carries for youths living in impoverished
ghettoes. Also documented is the physical and intellectual alacrity required
to play on the ghetto playgrounds, the proving ground for many of professional
basketball's best Black athletes. It bears repeating that one can travel
miles through any number of predominantly Black neighborhoods in the United
States and see no swimming pools, golf courses, tennis courts, or baseball
fields. Performance and excellence on a concrete, outdoor court has brought
more than several players out of their neighborhoods to college campuses
and, in some cases, into the NBA.

As younger men have become more interested in basketball since its desegregation,
they have preferred the sort of artful, virtuosic play that Black people
first brought to the game. Thus, the ethos of basketball has bloomed far
beyond any expectations of the 1960s. Indeed, a recent feature on sportswear
marketing suggests that Black basketball players have also revised notions
of fame, style, and business competition. The sometimes fierce marketing
battle in recent years between Nike and Reebok has escalated the earning
potential for athletes who appear in product advertisements, augmenting
the $3.9 million salary of the highest paid player, Michael Jordan, with
over $36 million in endorsement earnings during 1996..12*

It is "Jordan's appeal," writes Fortune magazine reporter Kenneth
Labich, "that changed sports marketing forever." Indeed, once
Shaquille O'Neal, of the Orlando Magic NBA team, signed on to endorse
Reebok products, "the start of the war between Nike and Reebok for
the hearts, minds, and feet of the American public" had begun in
earnest. The Black athlete had been central to the definition of this
style "war" and also became central to a widespread question
of social style altogether. Labich cites an advertising executive commenting
that "These ads changed the economics and mechanics of everything
we do. They redefined what is celebrity.".13*

While the position of Black athletes at the college ranks is not as well
studied and documented as that of professional athletes, the most cursory
inspection shows that all colleges and universities, except for marginal,
and perhaps, denominational schools have to some degree integrated since
1960. In all these areas, Black college athletes have excelled in tandem
with their counterparts in professional sports. There are more Black quarterbacks
in college football than ever before. Although there is a prejudice in
the professional ranks against Black quarterbacks, many argue that the
greater numbers of them in the National Football league draft will increase
pressure to change the current, fearful attitude toward Black men in leadership
roles. Significantly then, in this year's championships of college basketball,
the majority of the players there who reached the Sweet Sixteen and the
Final Four, were overwhelmingly Black. The Most Outstanding Player in
the final game between the University of Kentucky and Syracuse University,
Tony Delk, is a Black player. In track and field, particularly in the
coming Olympics, the overwhelming number of Black American athletes in
proportion to white Olympians is radically disproportionate to the Black
population in overall U.S. society.

Apart from numbers in the professional leagues, one index of the changing
status of Black professional athletes is their income. In the 60s and
70s, the case could be argued that the Black athlete was financially and
otherwise undervalued to a point that made arbitration and serious salary
negotiations impossible. The dean of American sports writers, Sam Lacy,
sports editor of the Baltimore Afro-American, noted in 1967 that "the
African American player was much quicker to sign a contract than white
players, and in comparison, was woefully under paid.".14*.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the situation changed dramatically. In 1991,
for example, Sports Illustrated noted that Eric Dickerson of football's
Indianapolis Colts had just signed a $10.65 million dollar contract over
a four year period, making him one of the highest paid players in football..15*In
1990, the twelve highest paid players in National Basketball Association
were all Black. In baseball another story has unfolded in the 1980s and
90s.

In 1990, the number of Black professional baseball players continued
to decline, reaching only 17% in 1992 while Black attendance also declined.
But of the remaining Black players, a significant number commanded more
than ordinary salaries. In 1991, Dwight Gooden signed a contract with
the New York Mets for three years and $15.4 million to become baseball's
second-highest paid player. Since 1991, at least 4 Black players have
exceeded Gooden's salaries. For example, Cecil Fielder, Barry Bonds, Frank
Thomas, and now Ken Griffey, Jr. all earn in excess of $7 million annually
in multi-year contracts. The average of Griffey's salary earnings, spread
over his 4 year current contract, is $8.5 million per year, making him
the single highest paid baseball player in history..16*

Salaries alone do not tell the entire story. Increasingly, an expanding
group of African American athletes receive additional income far in excess
of their salaries for endorsing products from breakfast cereals to automobiles.
This was not always the case. In fact, the first Black athlete of the
football Chicago Bears, Walter Payton, did not appear on the Wheaties
box until 1986. Now, in 1996, Michael Jordan of basketball's Chicago Bulls
and sports' highest paid athlete is expected to earn 90% of his $40 million
through endorsements. While this situation does not characterize the majority
of Black athletes, it does include a significant number, and is in happy
contrast to the 1960s and before, when the picture of an African American
on a breakfast cereal box was simply unthinkable.

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